


I'm So Tired But I Can't Sleep

by Angel Ascending (angel_in_ink)



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Brief Mention of Self Injury, Character Study, Crying, Dissociation, Gen, Insecurity, Panic Attacks, Spoilers Through Episode 18
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:54:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22216624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_ink/pseuds/Angel%20Ascending
Summary: Just two people in two separate rooms unable to sleep for two different reasons.
Comments: 16
Kudos: 64





	I'm So Tired But I Can't Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place during episode 12, which is when I started writing this, but I tagged it with spoilers through episode 18 because I mention something here that was revealed in that episode. Title is from Sarah McLachlan's "I Will Remember You," because sometimes your temporary working title becomes your actual title.
> 
> First time writing for this fandom, but anyone who follows me should not be surprised that I fell hard for this podcast. I'm on episode 52 right now and I've yelled at Alex in delighted anger at least five times today.

There’s no reason Sasha should be awake right now, none at all. She’s laying in a bed in one of Other London’s more posh inns, (it boasts _actual_ glasses for one, and three different colors of soup and eel five ways. Six if you count eel quiche) her stomach is full, and the day has been filled with fighting and fear enough that she should have dropped off to sleep the moment she became horizontal. And yet here she is, staring at the ceiling, her mind refusing to settle.

_What a_ **_shame._ ** _All of those tutors and none of them taught you how to hold a_ **_conversation._ ** __

“Shut up,” Sasha mumbles, rolling over to face the door, her back to the wall. Out of all the things that happened today, she’s not sure why it’s those words from her uncle that stick with her. She doesn’t care what he thinks of her, and yet those words had been like a kick in the shins to her pride, which at least was better than a well placed dagger to the kidneys.

She had been afraid that she was going to get her new— associates? Co-workers? Teammates? She had been afraid that Zolf or Bertie or Hamid were going to get _killed_ just for being associated with her, afraid that perhaps her uncle wouldn’t let her go once he had her back again. It had been a pretty tall order to expect her to remain articulate in the face of that fear, hadn’t it?

Words have never been her friends really, sentences lining up all nice and neat and clever sounding in her head only to lose their way somewhere between her brain and her tongue, whatever fragments of thought that remained falling out of her mouth like a drunk tripping over loose stones in an alley, making her feel awkward in a way that picking locks or throwing daggers never does. The stutter only gets worse when she’s frightened, and it’s not something she can help, and she _hates_ it. She’s got the rest of her body on lock, completely under her control. She doesn’t tremble when she’s afraid, she doesn’t cry when she’s scared or yell when she’s been hurt. It’s safer not to let others know those sorts of things, or at least, in Other London it is. Upper London has different rules, or maybe they’re all the same rules just dressed up in nicer clothing.

“You’re _fine_ ,” Sasha growls quietly to herself. So what if she has a hard time talking to people? She doesn’t need to talk much to be useful to the group anyway. Zolf is more than articulate enough to make up for her lack and Bertie— well, Bertie blusters through conversations with all the elegance and grace of a bastard sword hacking into a table leg, but he somehow manages to do it with a certain rough charm. And Hamid, well, he speaks a bit like she does, his sentences full of false starts, but something about his voice or maybe the way he looks at people makes you want to listen to what he says. He’s _friendly_ , and that’s fine, if strange, but he’s _honest_ in a way that Sasha can only think of as dangerous, with his emotions out there for all to see.

Sasha remembers thinking _oh no_ when she had seen Hamid crying in her uncle’s study, fear plain there for all to see in every tense line of his posture. And yet he had handled himself well for all that, though Sasha had felt like screaming when he had put the ring on, had felt the ghost of her left ring finger throb with a sudden, pulsing ache. She’s already resigned herself to the fact that she’ll be the one to cut off Hamid’s finger when it comes to that. After all, she’s had experience at it, and surely it’ll be easier to cut off someone else’s finger than hacking off her own had been. She nearly scowls when she finds herself running her thumb over the rough and twisted scar where her ring finger had once been, and curls her hand around the hilt of the dagger she’s placed beneath her pillow instead.

“Go to _sleep_.”

Her body eventually obeys her commands and she ends up sleeping well despite her dreams, which are full of darkness and daggers and blood. She’s used to that, after all.

———

There’s no reason Hamid should be awake right now, none at all. Despite the rough blankets on the bed and what laughably passes for a pillow he should have been stretched out and probably having terrible dreams at least an hour ago. He shouldn’t be sitting on the bed in just his pants, prestidigitating the worst of today’s stains out of his clothes as if they won’t just be filthy again tomorrow.

He’s not tired, that’s the thing. Tired is staying up all night studying at university. Tired is having a night out with someone and watching the sun come up together. Tired is gambling all night and losing track of time until you walk out of a casino with three gold in your pocket and being surprised by the daylight. That’s what tired is. Hamid is not tired. Hamid has gone straight past tired, blown right past exhaustion. He doesn’t have a name for what he is right now, but it’s nothing as mundane as tired.

Hamid’s hands move automatically in the gestures of prestidigitation, the whispered words crisp on his tongue like good champagne. Another stain gone. A bloodstain. They’ve all been bloodstains. He can’t do anything about the holes caused by acid, but he can at least do something about the bloodstains. He—

Hamid stares down at his hands. They’re shaking. He hadn’t realized they’d been shaking. The copper ring on his left hand glimmers in the dim light of the small oil lamp burning on his bedside table. He’d gone to take it off before bed, just out of force of habit, because you don’t wear jewelry to bed, not if you want to keep it looking nice, and had forgotten that he had already tried to take it off once. It hadn’t moved then either. It doesn’t move now as he watches his fingers tug at it for a moment before he makes himself stop. It’s surprisingly hard to make his hands obey, like they’re not really his hands.

And then it happens again. Nails growing long and black and hard, fingers stretching out and becoming spindly, the skin on his hands going strange and shimmery. It doesn’t hurt, and that’s not reassuring, because it has to be a curse or something, right? A curse or some other strange affliction, something unnatural that should hurt him? It’s not something he’s willfully doing, or some sort of spell he’s casting without his knowledge. He knows what magic feels like, the fizz of prestidigitation, the sharp tang in the back of his throat when he casts acid splash or the warmth in his hands when he makes a spark. This doesn’t feel like _anything_ , like they’re just his _hands_ , except they can’t be, except they _are_ , and when he moves them the light glimmers across his skin, his scales…

There’s a sound coming from somewhere, something that sounds like someone breathing too fast, like someone sobbing, and it isn’t until Hamid feels tears dripping off the end of his chin that he realizes it’s _him._ With that realization he becomes hyper aware of everything, how hard he’s shaking, how loud his hiccuping sobs are, the way the air feels entirely lacking in oxygen. His brain is shrieking at him that he’s dying, that the others are going to find him in the morning in just his pants, small and sad and _undignified_.

Hamid makes himself focus on the flame of the lamp on his bedside table as he tries to force his breathing into some sort of regular pattern. He hasn’t had an attack like this since university, a thought that brings up another wave of feelings that he desperately shoves aside. He had gotten through such attacks then, which means he can get through this one now. He clings to the logic of that idea like a drowning man clinging to a life line as time stretches on and on, as his panicked sobs eventually settle down into more gentle weeping, then into sniffling.

“What am I doing here?” Hamid whispers as he looks down at his hands again, _his_ hands, at the familiar brown skin and his neatly manicured nails. He feels like he’s been hollowed out, like the last of his energy has left him with his tears. “Why am I doing this?”

 _Because you don’t want to spend the rest of your life just killing time_ , he thinks to himself, the words too personal to trust to speech. _Because you want to help people. Because you have things to make up for. Because you want to belong. Because you want to be_ ** _better_** _._

Hamid casts prestidigitation one last time, using the summoned handkerchief to clean his face before he puts out the light and crawls into bed. He dreams of shadows, of hearing his hands scuttling around without him in the dark, claws scraping against stone, and wakes in the morning with his hands curled so tightly against his chest that they ache.

**Author's Note:**

> So I maybe fell in love with Sasha immediately upon introduction (stabby rogue stole my heart) and also *maybe* projected onto her a tiny bit. (We're the same height, can dodge through crowds with ease, and aren't terribly articulate.) When Barret said the line about not being able to hold a conversation I remember actually flinching, and thought maybe it would have stung Sasha just a little bit too. Just a little. Tiny blow to the pride.
> 
> And Hamid. Oh Hamid. What can I say?
> 
> I'm angel-ascending on Tumblr and angel_in_ink on Twitter if y'all want to stop by and say hi!


End file.
